Maître des Cortèges

P Rosenberg, Tout l'oeuvre peinte des Le Nain, Paris 1993, p. 102, cat. no. C7 (as the Maître des Cortèges).

 

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This charming picture has been fairly recently cosmetically restored and while it could be hung as is, there is good reason to suppose that the restoration could be improved. The lining does not sufficiently restrain a fairly complex tear which runs through Panza's shoulders and across to Don Quixote's leg, where it runs vertically through the waist of the horse. This tear, despite the restoration, is quite visible because of the weak lining yet it appears to be the only structural damage. The paint layer is quite visibly worn throughout and one should be aware that there is a good deal of restoration here and there in the sky and elsewhere. The figures themselves seem to be quite well preserved and the animals are thin in the brown colors. Under ultraviolet light restorations are visible to the tear mentioned above but not to other areas however, it is more than likely that beneath an older varnish further retouches have been applied. This is not to say that one should shy away from further restoration to this interesting picture.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This striking picture is amongst the very earliest depictions in art of one of the most important and memorable characters in Western literature, Don Quixote, and is a document of the immediate, immense and international popularity of Miguel de Cervantes' novel.  Don Quixote de la Mancha is shown astride his "noble" steed Rocinante, reaching around to take a lance from his "squire" Sancho Panza, himself astride his own mount, the donkey Rucio (who aspires to become a horse himself).  Quixote wears his armor, but has already changed his more standard morion helmet for the magical  "golden Helmet of Membrino," in fact an inverted shaving basin that he has captured from an itinerant barber.  In the background to the right stand several of the ancillary figures of the tale outside the inn that, in Quixote's mercurial perception, is a great castle. 

The painter of this wonderful image is the so-called Maître des Cortèges, a working name given to an artist active in the middle years of the seventeenth century, clearly under the influence of the frères Le Nain, but with a distinct personality.  The uniformly high quality of his autograph work and his stylistic individuality separate him from some of the other more prosaic followers of the brothers.  The eponymous works of the artist are two large canvases, one depicting a Procession with a Ram (Philadelphia Museum of Art), and a Procession with a Bull (Musée du Louvre, on deposit with the Musée Picasso).  Both of the paintings depict in frieze-like disposition a group of merrymakers leading an animal with musical accompaniment, much in the manner of an antique sacrificial frieze.  The sculptural quality of the animals in these paintings is repeated in the current canvas.  Rosenberg (see Literature) notes another version of the present composition, which varies in details of the landscape.¹

Don Quixote, or to give the book its proper title, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, one of the greatest achievements of Western literature, was first published in 1604/05, and was quickly pirated and translated into other languages.²  The first version of the book in French was available from 1618, translated by François de Rosset.   In fact, it is in the front of de Rosset's translation that the first depiction of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza was ever made, as an illustration on the title page.  This image served as one of the principle depictions of the two heroes in future editions as well, borrowed and adapted, for example, for the London printing of 1620, and again for the version published by Arnold Cottinet in Paris in 1639. This is also the depiction that would probably have been most familiar to the Maître des Cortèges when he began to compose his own version of the subject.  The anonymous engraving shows the two figures astride their mounts, as in the present painting, traversing a sweeping landscape with a low horizon line.  The two riders face to the left, however, and are moving forward, rather than pausing as they seem to in the present canvas.   Quixote wears his peculiar helmet, and instead of the country inn in the distance, the anonymous artist has depicted the more emblematic windmill on a hill in the distance.   Sancho Panza is dressed more in the manner of an equerry or a servant, while in the present canvas he is shown as a French peasant, with a cape and tall hat, clearly in the tradition of the Le Nain brothers.

The unusual choice of the subject suggests that, despite the popularity of the book, the Don Quixote may have been a commission rather than a painting that the Maître painted on speculation.  While the original owner of the painting is unknown, it is interesting to conjecture that it might have been painted for a Spanish patron then living in Paris who desired a visual rendering of what was already being considered his country's literary masterpiece.  Certainly the Le Nain brothers, and presumably their direct circle of whom the Maître must have been one of the principle figures, would have been famous enough as artists to have attracted such a commission from a foreign source.  In fact, among the significant religious paintings that the Le Nain painted early in their career are a series of four upright canvases of the Life of the Virgin.  While no early record of the commission exists, the canvas of the Annunciation (now in the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, Paris, see fig. 1) is charged with a distinct and elaborate coat of arms on the Virgin's prie-dieu.  These have been identified as those of Don Antonio Pimentel Barroso de Rovera, Marques de Mirabel, who was the Spanish ambassador to the French court from 1630-32, who presumably ordered the series from the Le Nain during his short stay in the French capital.³

What makes this speculation on the Spanish patronage for Don Quixote more compelling, however, is what an x-ray of the canvas reveals.  The composition was painted over another painting, which was vertical in format, also depicting the Annunciation (see fig. 2, with contours of the original image in black outline).  The depiction of the subject is rather similar to the Pimentel canvas, showing the Virgin in profile and disposed in the lower left of the composition, looking upward at the hovering Gabriel, with a still life element also in the lower right of the composition, and in this case a large vase of flowers (perhaps lilies?) positioned on a book.  The relationship of the two is somewhat striking, and given the depiction of a Spanish literary theme in the final, finished picture, it begs the question of the relationship between the present Don Quixote and the Le Nain Annunciation painted for Pimentel.  Did the Maître, for example, know the Pimentel canvas firsthand, as seems very likely, and in what capacity—as an assistant of the Le Nain?  And was the painting underneath the Don Quixote a commission from a Spanish patron also, abandoned, and then reused, perhaps for the same patron who presumably may have paid for the materials or given the artist an advance, to depict the Don Quixote?  While it is impossible to know for sure, it does suggest intriguing possibilities, perhaps bringing the Maître even closer to the Le Nain themselves.

 

1  Published by J. Thuillier, "Le Nain,: leçons d'une exposition", Revue du Louvre, no. 2, 1979, p. 162, fig. 11.
2   The book was, in fact, published in two parts, the first available in January of 1605, and the second late in 1615.
3   This allows a fairly precise dating for the works, somewhat unusual in the corpus of the brothers' work.  The paintings remained in church of the Petits-Augustins, Paris.  There is a reference to them in an inventory made at the time of the Revolution, where six canvases in total are mentioned; the Birth of the Virgin and the Assumption are now lost, but the Presentation, the Annunciation, the Visitation and the Nativity are all extant (see Les frères Le Nain, exhibition catalogue, Paris 1878, pp. 104-114, cat. nos. 4-7).